For years, ObamaCare critics focused on its least popular feature  the mandate that everyone buy insurance  taking their fight all the way to the Supreme Court.

But as ObamaCare's official launch date approaches, even its backers are beginning to admit that the law could actually create powerful incentives for millions of people and thousands of businesses to drop their coverage, despite the mandate.

There is growing concern, for example, that the law's market reforms will cause a huge "rate shock," particularly for those young and healthy.

For the young and healthy faced with a system that would charge them premiums five or ten times the maximum penalty, and a system that would let them enroll in a health care plan while in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, why would any rational actor sign up for Obamacare in advance?

The cause of this rate shock is simple: ObamaCare imposes what is called "community rating" on insurance companies, effectively forcing them to charge the young and healthy more so they can charge older and sicker consumers less.

My grandad who’s healthy as a horse at 74 dropped his part B after ten years (got on it at 62) - never used it. It was priced at that time at $97/mo had paid in over $11,000 for nothing. He’s only on hypertension medication at $10 for a three month supply at Walmart. That’s it. He just told me in another year or two the price of part B will rise to $210 a month. This is what Obamacare will be like.

8
posted on 02/21/2013 4:23:05 PM PST
by SkyDancer
(Live your life in such a way that the Westboro church will want to picket your funeral.)

Yeah, it was sheer genius to enshrine the death of the tenth as well as saddle the nation with an enormous tax and cost increase. I keep hearing that we conservatives get even more back with his decision but the trouble is that no one can give me an example. Giving the federal government unlimited power is supposed to be conservative?

14
posted on 02/21/2013 4:37:31 PM PST
by freedomfiter2
(Brutal acts of commission and yawning acts of omission both strengthen the hand of the devil.)

my bro had to drop his companies O-care cause it was going to cost him 20 grand a year.

Company's subsidized premiums increased to 20K/year even before Obamacare provisions go into effect (Jan. 1st, 2014)? That's hard to believe. I can buy a commercial individual policy right now including Rx coverage for a family of four for $700/month and with no high deductible.

I should have qualified the quote: we are in our late 50s with two young dependents. Whole different ball game from “in my 20s”. That was the lowest commercial quote I found. Though we don’t qualify for state Medicaid because of necessary withdrawals from my IRA, we did end up on a state plan (they call it a “transition plan”). No idea what is going to happen next year or what our premiums will be.

Four other judges voted the same as Roberts. It seems wrong, somehow, to hold the only judge, whose vote isn’t predictable on the basis of ideological orientation, accountable for any SCOTUS ruling you don’t like.

Just make sure you always under withhold your tax payments such that you will always owe the government a bit at the end of each tax year instead of the other way around and they’ll have no way to collect any fine you might owe.

That’s the best way to do it anyway as it’s stupid to give the government an interest-free loan anyway.

21
posted on 02/21/2013 6:09:06 PM PST
by catnipman
(Cat Nipman: Vote Republican in 2012 and only be called racist one more time!)

It is with you like your soul is with your physical body. There is no choice but to pay for it one way or another - by design.

Actually, from what I understand, people making under a certain amount of income per year are exempt from paying. So, one method of avoiding paying for Obamacare is to go Galt. That also has the advantage of starving the beast. Say hello to barter system, working under the table, and back market, baby! Soviet Union here we come!

The other four judges don’t even claim to be originalists and are left wing idiots. Roberts turned his back on everything he supposedly stood for the make that ruling. What was his payback? That vote sealed the fate of America. The idea of a limited government is dead and the nation will follow shortly.

23
posted on 02/21/2013 8:40:24 PM PST
by freedomfiter2
(Brutal acts of commission and yawning acts of omission both strengthen the hand of the devil.)

If Roberts made his ruling on the basis of some political calculus; then I completely agree with you.

If, on the other hand, Roberts made his ruling on the basis of his interpretation of the law, and in particular, the Constitution, that's another matter. In that case, the ruling should be attacked on the basis of the law, rather than the political issues involved.

It seems to me (as nothing but an interested outsider) that the SCOTUS has become far too political -- in the worst sense of the word. It was supposed to be a body that interpreted Constitutional law in a disinterested (and particularly a non-partisan) fashion. Now, as you point out, four of the members are left-wing idiots -- and four others seem to be partisan right-wingers (although that makes them enlightened, rather than idiots, it's still a partisan political mindset). Roberts is the only one whose vote isn't easily predicted; because he appears to put the law above partisan politics. Anyhow, that's how things seem to this foreigner, based mainly on things I've read on FR.

You’d know more about that than me. A Supreme Court shouldn’t play politics. (The Supreme Court of Canada has it’s own set of problems — so, I’m not trying to suggest that only the SCOTUS has problems separating politics from the rule of law.)

“The problem is that people — apparently even you — interpret belief in the Constitution as being partisan right-wing behavior.”

Almost everyone on this board seems to agree that there are 4 left-wing partisans, who make their rulings on the basis of a partisan political calculus. Left wingers adore them.

There are four other justices, who reliably make rulings that right-wingers like. Perhaps, they are all strict constructionists, and make their rulings without any thought of the political issues. If so, why is it so easy to predict what their rulings are going to be, simply on the basis of the partisan divisions in the political realm?

Roberts stands apart, because his rulings aren’t easily predicted on the basis of a political analysis alone. That’s as it should be — constitutional law isn’t easy, otherwise they could just randomly select panels of 9 citizens to hear each case; like they do with juries in ordinary trials.

I've been reflecting on your comment, since my reply above and would like to run another possibility by you. First, let me remind you that I actually said "seem to be partisan right-wingers ...."

Adherents of "right wing" of U.S. politics are philosophically aligned with the principles embedded in the U.S. Constitution. Rabid left-wingers insist on the "living-document" doctrine, because they share little philosophical ground with the Constitution as actually written. Since they can't get the written Constitution they want through the prescribed amendment process; they cling to the "living document" doctrine, and count on like-minded Justices to don their magic glasses, and read what they want to see between the lines.

Therefore, a strict constructionist will naturally seem* to be philosophically aligned with the "right wing" -- but, that's not being partisan. Partisan politics are very different from pure political philosophy. The calculus of realpolitik muddies the political philosophy. The Democrats have cobbled together a coalition based on identity politics, and class warfare (amongst other things). Some Democrats are actually "liberals" (in the real sense of the word), others are Marxists, others are just thugs and shake-down artists. On the right, I give you RINOs.

* By "seem to be" I mean that a strict constructionist would set aside his or own personal political philosophy, and base his rulings entirely on the law, as written. Even if that Jurist were a Marxist, he would thus "seem" to be a right winger, simply because today's right wing is more in tune with the Constitution.

Exactamundo. The left works to characterize the people-who-actually-believe-in-what-this-country-means as people who are at the crazy right end of the spectrum (”bitter clingers”). What used to be the American ideal and the American consensus is now portrayed as stupid and/or evil.

But the fundamental, underlying problem is that, for the most part, the people who populate this country now are not the same kind of people who lived during Revolutionary times. Back then, and as recently as the middle of the 20th Century, kids grew up with the freedom to explore the world, to gain experiences and discipline that made them grown-up in their mid-teens, and to learn the consequences of disobeying natural law.

By now we've had a hundred years of public schooling. Now, even the teachers are stupid and every major institution in this country is broken. Politics, government, education, health care, and so on are more "dys-" than functional, sapping the country of the resources it needs to move forward. The military is joining the flow towards mediocrity.

We are now -- with few exceptions -- a nation of sheep. That provides a huge opportunity for people who claim to be our shepherd -- and an equal opportunity for a wolf.

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